The EWTN News portal reports that the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, alongside the Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford, has filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit seeking to block provisions of the Illinois Human Rights Act that would compel religious employers to hire and retain employees who engage in or support abortion, contraception, and sterilization. Bishop Thomas Paprocki stated that the diocese “proclaims, teaches, and encourages Catholics to live out all the teachings of the Church” and that employees are “expected to uphold our standards of conduct to align with the doctrine and moral teaching of the Catholic Church.” The district court had dismissed the suit on standing grounds, calling the alleged violations “speculative.” The Alliance Defending Freedom, representing the plaintiffs, argues that the First Amendment protects the right of religious ministries to hire in accordance with their convictions. While the legal effort is commendable in its limited scope, the entire framing of this dispute — from the diocese’s public statements to the secular legal strategy employed — reveals the catastrophic theological and ecclesiological bankruptcy of the post-conciliar structures that dare to speak in the name of the Catholic Church while remaining utterly silent on the far greater crisis of apostasy, invalid sacraments, and the occupation of the Holy See by manifest heretics.
The Right Question, Asked by the Wrong Authority
Let us begin with what is, on its face, an unassailable principle: a Catholic institution has the right — indeed, the duty — to ensure that its employees conform to Catholic moral teaching. This is not a novel insight. Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei (1885), taught that the Church is a societas perfecta, a perfect society, endowed by her Divine Founder with all that is necessary for her own governance and the attainment of her supernatural end. The right to hire and to require conformity of conduct and belief from those who represent her is inherent in her very constitution. As the Code of Canon Law (1917), Canon 152, affirmed, the Church possesses the right to govern her own members and institutions without interference from civil authority.
Bishop Paprocki’s statement that “we must have the freedom to follow and express our convictions without government interference” is, in the abstract, a correct assertion. But the bishop speaks as though he occupies a position of legitimate authority within the true Church of Christ. This is the foundational problem that no amount of legal maneuvering in secular courts can resolve. The Diocese of Springfield is a diocese of the conciliar sect — the post-conciliar structure that emerged from the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), an event convoked by the manifest heretic Angelo Roncalli (who styled himself “John XXIII”) and carried forward by his successors, all of whom have propagated doctrines condemned by the perennial Magisterium of the Church.
The question that must be asked — and that Bishop Paprocki will never ask, because to ask it would be to destroy the very platform upon which he stands — is this: By what authority does Thomas Paprocki govern the Diocese of Springfield?
The Sedevacantist Principle: A Bishop Without a Pope Is No Bishop at All
The Church has always taught that jurisdiction flows from the Roman Pontiff. A bishop’s authority is not self-derived; it is received through canonical mission from the Supreme Pontiff. As Pope Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis (1943), the bishops are the successors of the Apostles, but they are placed in governance of their sees by the authority of the Roman Pontiff, “the Vicar of Jesus Christ and the visible Head of the whole Church.”
Now, the critical question: who is the Roman Pontiff?
The sedevacantist position — grounded in the unanimous teaching of the Church Fathers, approved theologians, and the perennial Magisterium — holds that a manifest heretic ipso facto ceases to be Pope. St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church, wrote in De Romano Pontifice (II, 30): “A Pope who is a manifest heretic by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” This is not a fringe opinion. Wernz and Vidal, in their authoritative Ius Canonicum, confirmed Bellarmine’s position: “By notorious and publicly manifested heresy, the Roman Pontiff, should he fall into it, is deprived ipso facto of his personal jurisdiction even before any declaratory sentence by the Church.”
The post-conciliar occupiers of the Vatican — from Roncalli to Montini, from Luciani to Wojtyla, from Ratzinger to Bergoglio, and now to the current usurper Robert Prevost (who styles himself “Leo XIV”) — have each and every one propagated, taught, and imposed doctrines that are formally heretical according to the prior and immutable Magisterium. The teaching of the Second Vatican Council on religious liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) directly contradicts the teaching of Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos (1832), Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864), and Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei. The Council’s ecumenism contradicts Mortalium Animos of Pius XI. The liturgical reform of Paul VI — the so-called “Mass of Paul VI” — contradicts the teaching of the Council of Trent and the Code of Canon Law on the immutability of the sacred rites.
Every single one of these men was, from the moment of his public and manifest heresy, incapable of holding the office of Supreme Pontiff. And if there is no valid Pope, then there is no valid source of jurisdiction. Canon 209 of the 1917 Code establishes that the bond of communion with the Roman Pontiff is the foundation of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Without a valid Pope, the entire juridical structure of the post-conciliar Church collapses like a house built on sand.
Thomas Paprocki was appointed to the Diocese of Springfield by Jorge Mario Bergoglio — a manifest heretic who imposed the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which opened the door to Communion for public adulterers, directly contradicting the teaching of Pope John Paul II’s own Reconciliatio et Paenitentia and the perennial doctrine of the Church. Bergoglio’s appointment of bishops is therefore null, void, and of no effect, as Pope Paul IV declared in the Apostolic Constitution Cum ex Apostolatus Officio (1559): “If at any time it shall appear that any Bishop… or even the Roman Pontiff… has defected from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy: his promotion or elevation… shall be null, void, and of no effect.”
Bishop Paprocki, therefore, has no more authority to govern the Diocese of Springfield than any other baptized Catholic. His appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is an act performed by a private citizen — or, more precisely, by a member of a paramasonic structure that has usurped the name and properties of the Catholic Church while gutting her doctrine, worship, and governance.
The Liturgical Abomination: The Elephant in the Courtroom
Bishop Paprocki speaks of upholding “the doctrine and moral teaching of the Catholic Church.” Let us examine what this means in practice within the Diocese of Springfield.
The ordinary form of the Mass celebrated in the vast majority of parishes in the Diocese of Springfield is the so-called “Novus Ordo Missae” promulgated by Paul VI in 1969. This rite was designed, as its chief architect Fr. Annibale Bugnini (a man widely suspected of Masonic affiliation) admitted, to be as close to a Protestant service as possible. The Protestant observer at the Council, Robert McAfee Brown, stated that the new Mass was designed to reflect “the thinking of the best scholars of the day” — meaning, of course, the modernist and liberal Protestant theologians whose errors had been condemned by Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) and Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907).
The Novus Ordo Missae is not the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as offered by Our Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary and perpetuated in the unchanging Roman Rite. It is a manufactured liturgy that, in the words of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani in his famous Critical Study of the New Mass (1969), represents “a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass.” The suppression of the Offertory prayers that explicitly describe the propitiatory nature of the sacrifice, the replacement of the Roman Canon with Eucharistic Prayers that are ambiguous at best and heretical at worst, the turning of the priest to face the people (thereby obscuring the sacrificial character of the Mass), the use of vernacular languages that strip the liturgy of its sacred character — all of these innovations were condemned in advance by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei (1794) and by the Council of Trent.
When Bishop Paprocki speaks of “the doctrine and moral teaching of the Catholic Church,” does he include the doctrine that the Mass is a true propitiatory sacrifice? Does he teach that the Novus Ordo Missae is a corruption of that sacrifice? Does he offer the Traditional Latin Mass — the Mass of the Ages, the Mass of St. Pius V, the Mass that built Christendom — as the ordinary form of worship in his diocese?
The answer, of course, is no. The Diocese of Springfield, like virtually every diocese in the conciliar sect, offers the Novus Ordo as its primary liturgy. Any “Traditional Latin Mass” that may be offered is done so as a concession — an indult — granted by the very same heretical authority that has no power to grant it. The indult Mass is a controlled release valve, designed to keep the faithful tethered to the conciliar structures while the abomination of the Novus Ordo continues to desecrate altars across the world.
This is the fundamental dishonesty of Bishop Paprocki’s position. He fights in secular courts for the right to hire employees who conform to Catholic moral teaching, while he himself presides over a liturgical regime that has driven millions of Catholics out of the faith, that has emptied churches across the Western world, and that has produced a generation of Catholics who do not even believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament. The statistics are devastating: in the United States, weekly Mass attendance has plummeted from over 70% in the 1950s to below 20% today. The conciliar “reform” has been the most successful demolition of Catholic faith and practice in the history of the Church.
The Silence on the Real Persecution
The Illinois Human Rights Act, as described in the article, compels employers to accommodate employees’ decisions regarding abortion, contraception, and sterilization. This is an unjust law. Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), taught that Christ the King has authority over all of human society, including the civil order: “His reign extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” A law that compels a Catholic institution to facilitate or accommodate the killing of the unborn is a law that violates the royal dignity of Christ and the natural law written by God in the heart of every man.
But here is what Bishop Paprocki will never say: the greatest persecution of the Church today does not come from secular governments. It comes from within the Church herself.
Pope Pius X, in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, warned that the Modernists — the “synthesis of all heresy” — would not attack the Church from without but from within: “We have said that, if ever there was a danger for the Faith, it is to be feared not so much from the openly declared enemies of the Church as from certain men within the Church herself.” The Modernists, Pius X taught, occupy positions of authority, they control the seminaries, they write the textbooks, they shape the liturgy, and they use the language of Catholicism to destroy Catholicism from within.
This is precisely what has happened. The conciliar revolution was not a reform of the Church; it was a coup d’état carried out by men who had already embraced the errors condemned by the Syllabus of Errors, Lamentabili, and Pascendi. The “spirit of Vatican II” is the spirit of Modernism — the spirit that Pius X called “the synthesis of all heresy.” And the men who occupy the Vatican today — including the current usurper Robert Prevost — are the heirs and continuators of that revolution.
Bishop Paprocki does not mention this. He does not warn the faithful that the “Catholic Church” as it exists in its post-conciliar form is not the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. He does not tell them that the sacraments they receive in conciliar structures may be invalid — that the “baptisms” performed with the new rites are of doubtful validity, that the “confirmations” conferred with the new rite are certainly invalid, that the “Masses” celebrated in the Novus Ordo are not true propitiatory sacrifices, and that the “absolution” pronounced by priests ordained with the new rites of Paul VI may be entirely without effect.
This silence is not accidental. It is the silence of a man who has chosen institutional survival over the salvation of souls.
The Futility of Secular Legal Strategies
The Alliance Defending Freedom is a competent legal organization, and its defense of religious liberty in secular courts is a legitimate exercise of the natural right to religious freedom. But it is a natural right, not a supernatural one, and it operates within a framework that is itself the product of the very revolution that has destroyed the Church.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” — is itself a product of the Enlightenment, the same intellectual movement that gave rise to the French Revolution, liberalism, and the secularization of the state. Pope Pius IX condemned this very principle in the Syllabus of Errors, Proposition 77: “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.” And Proposition 78: “Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.” Both propositions were condemned.
The Church has always taught that the Catholic religion must be the religion of the state, and that the state has a duty to suppress public errors that endanger the salvation of souls. This is not “theocracy” in the pejorative sense used by modern liberals; it is the application of the social kingship of Christ, as taught by Pius XI in Quas Primas: “The State must not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him.”
Bishop Paprocki’s appeal to the First Amendment is, therefore, an appeal to a principle that the Church has condemned. It is an admission that the social kingship of Christ has been abandoned — that the Church no longer claims her rightful authority over the civil order, but instead begs for “freedom” within a secular framework that is itself hostile to the faith.
This is the fruit of the conciliar revolution. Dignitatis Humanae, the Vatican II declaration on religious liberty, taught that every person has a right to religious freedom — a teaching that directly contradicts the perennial Magisterium. And now, the bishops of the conciliar sect appeal to this very principle to defend their “right” to operate within a system that has been designed to marginalize and ultimately destroy the influence of the Catholic faith in public life.
The Pro-Life Cause Without the Supernatural Order
Bishop Paprocki and the Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford are to be commended for their defense of the unborn. The killing of innocent children in the womb is a crime against God and against the natural law. The Church has always taught, from the earliest centuries, that abortion is a mortal sin. The Didache, one of the earliest Christian documents (late first century), states: “You shall not kill the child by abortion.” The Council of Ancyra (314) imposed ten years of penance for women who procured abortion. Pope Sixtus V, in Effraenatam (1588), imposed excommunication for abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
But the pro-life cause, as waged by the conciliar structures, is fatally compromised by its separation from the supernatural order. The fight against abortion is not merely a political or legal battle; it is a spiritual battle that requires the grace of God, the sacraments, and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And it is precisely these means that the conciliar sect has corrupted or destroyed.
The Novus Ordo Missae does not offer the faithful the true propitiatory sacrifice that obtains grace for the conversion of sinners. The new rites of baptism, confirmation, and ordination are of doubtful or invalid efficacy. The “Catechism of the Catholic Church” (1992) contains ambiguities and errors on fundamental points of doctrine. The seminaries are filled with men who do not believe in the Real Presence, who deny the existence of hell, and who promote a “gospel” of social justice rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
How can the pro-life cause succeed when the very structures waging the fight have abandoned the supernatural means by which alone the conversion of hearts and the restoration of Christian civilization can be achieved?
The answer is that it cannot. The pro-life movement within the conciar structures is a rearguard action — a fight to preserve a remnant of Christian morality within a civilization that has already apostatized. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. What is needed is the restoration of the Catholic Church — the true Church, with her valid sacraments, her immutable doctrine, her sacred liturgy, and her rightful authority over the civil order.
The Duty of the Faithful
The faithful who read this article — who are concerned about the persecution of the Church by secular governments — must ask themselves a more fundamental question: Which Church is being persecuted?
The true Church of Christ — the Church of all ages, the Church that produced the martyrs, the saints, the Doctors, the missionaries, the religious orders, the cathedrals, the universities, the hospitals, the civilization of Christendom — that Church is not the conciliar sect that occupies the Vatican today. The true Church endures in the faithful who profess the integral Catholic faith, who receive the valid sacraments from priests ordained with the old rites, who attend the Traditional Latin Mass, and who reject the errors of Vatican II and the apostasy of the post-conciliar “popes.”
The Illinois Human Rights Act is an unjust law. But the greatest injustice being committed today is the occupation of the Holy See by manifest heretics who have destroyed the faith of millions. Bishop Paprocki fights against a symptom while ignoring the disease. He appeals to the First Amendment while abandoning the social kingship of Christ. He defends the right to hire pro-life employees while presiding over a liturgical and catechetical regime that has produced a generation of Catholics who do not even know what the Mass is.
“The faith teaches us and human reason demonstrates that a double order of things exists, and that we must therefore distinguish between the two earthly powers, the one of natural origin which provides for secular affairs and the tranquillity of human society, the other of supernatural origin, which presides over the City of God, that is to say the Church of Christ” (Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, Preliminary Chapter).
The faithful must return to the unchanging faith of the Church. They must seek out valid priests who offer the Traditional Latin Mass. They must reject the conciliar revolution in all its forms — the new Mass, the new sacraments, the new catechism, the new ecumenism, the new religious liberty. They must pray for the restoration of the Church — not a “reform” of the conciliar structures, but a return to the Church as she existed before the apostasy.
“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 126[127]:1). The house that Bishop Paprocki is defending is not the house of the Lord. It is the house of the conciliar revolution — a house built on the sand of Modernism, and destined to fall.
Source:
Illinois diocese asks court to block law requiring it to hire nonbelievers (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 04.06.2026